Stupid Jerk's stupid grow log for jerks

WalkGood · Jan 11, 2013

StupidJerk said:
... The good news is that after next Friday I'll have more free time than I know what to do with, so I'll get it done quick.

looking forward to seeing/reading updates

Trippa · Jan 11, 2013

Yeah bring on the updates

stc3248 · Jan 11, 2013

Yeah...stupid jerk!

PaulG · Jan 12, 2013

Hey, Carson. Your Peach Bhut is making a glorious comeback, looks great.
Very nice garden space; it will be a jungle in a few months!

StupidJerk · Jan 13, 2013

Denniz: I think you're overestimating the size of my apartment and my ability to navigated obstacles in the dark. Thanks for all of the seeds. I'm going to start germinating them today as I just emptied out my seed starting tray by potting up everything in it.

Walkgood, Trippa, STC, PaulG: Thanks for all of the encouragement, I'm starting to think I may have bitten off more than I can chew as a first time grower.

Alright, I suppose I should post some pictures of my makeshift growing spaces.

The prime real estate is under my t5 on top of our bookshelf. Living in a 800 sq ft apartment with my girlfriend, dog, and cat means that there are not a ton of places to grow things where they won't be interfered with.

Some highlights from under the light:
Black Pearl:

CaroLIEna Reaper:

I also have some space in a west facing window that some of my peppers live along with a few tomatoes and tomatillos. Most of the ones in the window were moved there because they were stunted for various reasons and I wanted to leave the most vigorous growers under the lights.
The left side:

The right side

the metal box is to keep the cat from jump in the window to chew on the plants.)

And here is my cold weather protection for outside, made from PVC and painter's plastic:

EDIT: for some reason this one isn't showing up and now it says I'm at the image limit(I thought it was 10?) I'll post it after someone replies.

On an unrelated note, I picked up some manzanos on a recent trip to Vallarta for $1.99/lb to make some powder. They weren't the prettiest, but I couldn't resist the price.
The pods:

Deseeded an in the dehydrator:

The bloody aftermath of the great manzano slaughter of 2013:

And for a bonus here is a photo of my garden in the middle of me double digging like a fool:

I dug down 6 inches, made a pile, dug down another 6 inches, made a pile. I put a layer of leaves at the bottom, mixed the substrate with some compost, manure, organic matter and placed it back in the hole. I mixed the upper soil with compost, manure, organic matter, and put it on top. After all of this I end up with the soil raised about 6-8 inches above its original level. It's a lot of work, but I think it will be worth it in the end. The person who used to have my plot came by and talked to me for a bit. She grew in containers only, so the soil is pretty compacted at this point.

Thanks for checking out my GLOG.

StupidJerk · Jan 14, 2013

Planted some more seeds tonight, mostly chiles from Denniz along with okra, cucumbers, and tomatillo(found out I need at least 2 tomatillo plants for them to produce)

Planted in jiffy pellets today (1/13):

Datil x 3
Scotch Bonnet x 2
Congo Yellow x 2 (Denniz)
Yellow Brainstrain x 3 (Denniz)
TS Morouga x 3 (Denniz)
Butch T x 3 (Denniz)
Butch T + Douglah cross x 3 (Denniz)
7 Pod Jonah x 2 (Denniz)
7 Pod Red x 2 (Denniz)
Fatalii x 3
Pepper Puya x 2 (Denniz)
Trinidad Scorpion red x 2 (Denniz)
Mystery red hab (Denniz)

Trippa · Jan 14, 2013

Sounds like you have been busy bro. I hope it all pays off handsomely in the end!!

PaulG · Jan 14, 2013

Double digging is the ticket, Carson. Looks like you are getting close to outside growing!
How's that Peach Bhut doing?

StupidJerk · Jan 14, 2013

The peach bhut is still doing great. I'll post some pictures when I can remove the greenhouse in a few days.

KiNGDeNNiZ · Jan 15, 2013

Hahah nice list. Btw. I also have a bunch of veggies. All sorts of cukes. Mater. Just know march or April cSUF has a mater and pepper weekend and sell a whole bunch.

Good job and keep it up

WalkGood · Jan 19, 2013

StupidJerk said:
… Walkgood, Trippa, STC, PaulG: Thanks for all of the encouragement, I'm starting to think I may have bitten off more than I can chew as a first time grower.

Na Carson you’re doing great, keep it up brah

StupidJerk said:
… Alright, I suppose I should post some pictures of my makeshift growing spaces.

Nice pics ^_^

StupidJerk said:
The prime real estate is under my t5 on top of our bookshelf. Living in a 800 sq ft apartment with my girlfriend, dog, and cat means that there are not a ton of places to grow things where they won't be interfered with.

I hear ya we have 4 & dog in a 2 bedroom house, that's one of the reasons I'm always outside

StupidJerk said:
… And for a bonus here is a photo of my garden in the middle of me double digging like a fool …

All your hard work will pay off, keep up dat great effort & grow mon!

StupidJerk said:
… The person who used to have my plot came by and talked to me for a bit. …

She must have been blow away by all you’ve done, what a wonderful transformation

StupidJerk · Jan 19, 2013

I forgot to post all of the babies I transplanted on 1/13, so here they are then:

And here they are today, 1/19

Here are a few of my other plants under the light. The big ones are from left to right: reaper, black pearl, and bhut jolokia. The bhut isn't looking good, but it's the only one in the crappy old soil I was using before. It's probably deficient in something, not sure what though.

Some bonus pictures of non-chile plants ahead.

Eggplant Long Purple sown on 12/14 and growing like crazy:

Beefsteak tomato also sown on 12/14:

And here I am after my girlfriend hit me over the head and decided to bury me in the garden:

I'm buried here. If someone could come dig me out that would be great. My phone is about to run out of juice.

Trippa · Jan 19, 2013

Did you leave instructions on when and how to plant out your Chilli's with your girlfriend?? I like your dedication using your own body as a slow release fertiliser :rofl:

should keep them going for months

WalkGood · Jan 19, 2013

StupidJerk said:
I forgot to post all of the babies I transplanted on 1/13 … ...

Nice babies mon!

StupidJerk said:
... Here are a few of my other plants under the light. The big ones are from left to right: reaper, black pearl, and bhut jolokia. The bhut isn't looking good, but it's the only one in the crappy old soil … ...

Carson, dump dat soil on the bhut, make sure there’s nothing bad in it and give her the chance that she deserves by giving her ~~good~~ great soil ^_^

StupidJerk said:
… And here I am after my girlfriend hit me over the head and decided to bury me in the garden … ... ...

She might find you smexy but I don’t, post up her pic

StupidJerk · Jan 19, 2013

Trippa said:
Did you leave instructions on when and how to plant out your Chilli's with your girlfriend?? I like your dedication using your own body as a slow release fertiliser should keep them going for months

I did, but I just realized there is no way that she is going to be able to finish all of that double digging on her own. Maybe I should wait until I finish to feed myself to the plants.

WalkGood said:
Carson, dump dat soil on the bhut, make sure there’s nothing bad in it and give her the chance that she deserves by giving her ~~good~~ great soil ^_^

She might find you smexy but I don’t, post up her pic

Good point, I really should do that. Repot the bhut that is, I'm not posting pictures of my girlfriend for you animals to ogle. Closest you'll get is this picture of our dog after he buried himself in the garden.

You can see the girlfriend's leg in the picture too, but that's all you get.

KiNGDeNNiZ · Jan 20, 2013

Awesome grow so far Carson let me know if I can be of any help...

KiNGDeNNiZ · Jan 20, 2013

Awesome grow so far Carson let me know if I can be of any help...

PaulG · Jan 20, 2013

Now that's what I call getting into your garden!

StupidJerk · Jan 21, 2013

Edit: Sorry about the terrible cell phone pictures. The color is definitely off. Someday I'll get a real camera.
Edit 2: Just realized how many gramatical errors were in this. Drank too much of that scotch before I wrote it all.

My grow log was seriously lacking in food porn, so I decided to document some of my work today. I am marinating some beef jerky right now, but this is my first attempt at that, so I decided I was best off not documenting it. Pizza, however, is not so new. Most of this will be documenting the dough making process rather than the sauce or toppings. The sauce was a thrown together concoction with a generous amount of manzano and habanero powder thrown in. The cheese was low moisture whole milk mozzarella grated just before I threw it on the pie. I didn't have anything else lying around, so this will just be extra cheesy.

First, our ingredients:

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
~5 Cups flour
2 cups water around 95 f
2 teaspoons salt
Olive oil for the bowl
The scotch is optional, but it makes everything better. note: Scotch goes in your mouth, not in the dough

Mix the yeast with 2 cups of water and about 1 tablespoon of flour. Let sit for 10 or 15 minutes, until it is a bit bubbly on top. Then put in 3 cups of the flour and the salt. Mix until it is all combined like a batter. Combine another cup of flour until the very wet dough seems a bit workable and turn it out onto a lightly floured work area:

The dough is going to be hard to work with at first, but that's fine. During the kneeding you can work another cup or so of flour in, but be careful not to add too much. I find it best to start out by stretching the dough out and folding it onto itself several times. A bench knife is very useful during this process. Eventually it will start holding together enough that you can kneed it regularly. After about 10 or so minutes it will look like this:

You can now put it in your mixing bowl that you have coated with olive oil and turn it to make sure that the ball is coated:

Now set it aside and wait for it to rise. Some people cover the bowl, but I don't. It isn't really necessary. I then wait 3-4 hours for it to rise. This time will vary based on your temperature, elevation, etc. This is more or less how it will look when it is ready, but note that it dropped a bit because I started to turn it out before I remembered to take the picture:

Once it has been turned out, use the bench knife to cut it into four equalish parts.

Make sure your oven is preheated to as high as it goes by this point.
If you are making 4 pizzas leave them all out to rise for another 30 minutes or so. If not, put the other dough balls into containers and refrigerate for storage. I like to use old Chinese take-out soup containers like these:

To stretch out the dough I like to grab one corner about an inch in and pull it from the surface and let the weight of the dough do the stretching. I think a lot of people make the mistake of working their dough too much and losing a lot of the bubbles and goodness by getting too fancy. I then balance the dough back and forth gently as it lays on both my hands and let it stretch by flopping back and forth, then when it is the right size I flip it onto a floured peel. Stretch it so that it is round and fills the peel, then put your toppings on. Something I like to shake the peel a bit(picture the motion of poking a fire place) to make sure that the dough doesn't start sticking. Once the toppings are on I slide it into my oven. Unfortunately I forgot to take any picture of the stretching/topping process so I had to snap one just after I place it in the oven.

Notice that I don't have a pizza stone. I use 2 layers of unglazed quarry tile as my baking stone. It's cheap and safe and has worked great for me for years. The best part is not having to worry about breaking them. I think I bought a package of them 4 years ago at Home Depot for $12.
Here is the pie out of the oven:

And a slice just before I devoured it:

stc3248 · Jan 21, 2013

Pizza looks awesome! Now I'm freakin hungry at almost midnight!